Hi usaf1125,
You know you probably belong to the 5 - 10 % MDS patients with refractory anemia
. These patients have the best prognosis of the MDS patients. They can manage very well with treatment with EPO drugs like Procrit, Aranesp and similar drugs that stimulate the bone marrow so it will make red blood cell.
Other patients like me have all counts low at dx. My kidneys were trying to stimulate my bone marrow and were desperately releasing EPO into my blood without effect on the very fibrotic bone marrow. My own EPO was more than 800 and when it is so high Procrit won't help me.
90 % of us sooner or later don't manage with supportive therapy alone so we have to start more active therapy with Revlimid, Vidaza or other drugs.
Kind regards
Birgitta-A
72 yo, dx MDS Interm-1 2006, supportive therapy with txs until 2010 when I started taking Thalidomide with good effect.